Cathleen & Colleen in Turkey
Turkey exceeded our expectations and dazzled us with its natural wonders, friendly people, awesome archaeology sites and 5 star meals.
We're ardent Grecophiles and very much aware that large swaths of Turkey, particularly the west coast, was Greek territory for years and years. The Greeks still call Istanbul Constantinople which was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the center of the Greek Orthodox Church. So there was just a bit of skeptism that this country could win our hearts. But it did in so many departments and often in surprising ways. Turkey is a Muslim country with the haunting sound (to Western ears) of the muezzin call to prayer reverberating five times a day in your aural space. Yet, unlike other Islamic countries, only once did we witness someone praying in public. In western Turkey we rarely saw women fully covered, although the headscarf was ubiquitous. The protective "evil eye" was everywhere, including on crass commercial items like the magnets in the above banner photo. Although the trip ended two days early on a catastrophic note with Colleen's accident, otherwise our Tour de Turkey was a smashing success. All photos by Colleen We encourage you to click open each page's photo gallery -- the pictures are so much livelier in a larger size and many are captioned. |
Destinations Itinerary, 2011 October 15 Istanbul
October 16 Istanbul October 17 Istanbul October 18 Capadoccia October 18 Capadoccia October 19 Capadoccia October 20 Capadoccia October 21 Selcuk - Ephesus October 22 Kapikiri October 23 Bodrum October 24 Bodrum October 25 Pamukkale October 26 Pamukkale October 27 Afrodisias - Aydin October 28 sudden return to Athens |